Elegan/tg/entlefolk,

Most tabletop RPGs have got shields and armor all wrong.

Take D&D for example. Shields and armor both add to the difficulty an adventurer has in striking their target. But in reality, this just simply is not the case. Shields to this, sure, by parrying and deflecting weapons and projectiles before they can contact the body. But armor is only supposed to absorb blows that make it past the primary defenses an adventurer has, and is really just a last-ditch effort to not die. Sure, there's fighting styles that have been recorded that use armor like a shield, and armor has been made specially to deflect even bullets, but let's face it:

In the end, generically and realistically, shields are the only part of the 'AC equation' that actually makes you harder to hit.

So, I ask you, sirs and madams, what would -you- do to rectify this predicament? I have been toying with a more usable version of the alternate rules the SRD offers on the matter, because with those, armor still provides AC, when it should only provide damage reduction. I propose we get our heads together and figure out a way to make this work properly, in a streamlined way that doesn't make things any more difficult than they are now, because fun is the name of the game after all, and too much bookkeeping can ruin even the most entertaining game.

tl;dr - Let's make Armor and Shields make sense in d20, and maybe other systems that suffer the same issue.